The Four Color Media Monitor

David Hayter had an open letter posted by a webmaster working for him where he urges fans to come back for more of the Watchmen movie that says:

Please go see the movie again next weekend.

You have to understand, everyone is watching to see how the film will do in its second week. If you care about movies that have a brain, or balls, (and this film's got both, literally), or true adaptations -- And if you're thinking of seeing it again anyway, please go back this weekend, Friday or Saturday night. Demonstrate the power of the fans, because it'll help let the people who pay for these movies know what we'd like to see. Because if it drops off the radar after the first weekend, they will never allow a film like this to be made again.

[...]

All this time, you’ve been waiting for a director who was going to hit you in the face with this story. To just crack you in the jaw, and then bend you over the pool table with this story. With its utterly raw view of the darkest sides of human nature, expressed through its masks of action and beauty and twisted good intentions. Like a fry-basket full of hot grease in the face. Like the Comedian on the Grassy Knoll. I know, I know...

You say you don't like it. You say you've got issues. I get it.

And yet... You'll be thinking about this film, down the road. It'll nag at you. How it was rough and beautiful. How it went where it wanted to go, and you just hung on. How it was thoughtful and hateful and bleak and hilarious. And for Jackie Earle Haley.

Trust me. You'll come back, eventually. Just like Sally.

He must've taken a lot of flak for that, because he later wrote an update saying:

First off, let me apologize for my metaphor. I am certainly not advocating violence against women of any kind. My sole intent was to reference one of the most complex, controversial and interesting issues in the story imho -- The nature of the relationship between Sally and the Comedian, and likening that complexity to some people's reaction to the film. It was meant more in the spirit of speaking to those who are truly entwined with the heart of the story -- A horrific act, that ends in a love story. I sincerely apologize for any offense.

It's too late, I'm afraid. The movie has already lost more than 70 percent of its audience, and I don't think they're going to waste another 7-10 dollars so easily. What a disturbed man he must be, suggesting that the audience, comic or movie fans, allow themselves to be victimized like rape victims.

If there's any lesson that could be learned from this, it's what moviemakers may think of comic fans, just like the big two's publishers, that they're willing to let themselves be ripped off repeatedly by buying badly written comics and are unable to resist. Maybe it'll get some to think about why that has to change, and we can't let ourselves be taken advantage of anymore.